1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a telephone relay system that opens a communication line to the specific telephone terminal of a specific terminal user in response to a line connecting request from the outgoing telephone terminal of a telephone outgoing user. The present invention also relates to a telephone relay apparatus provided in the telephone relay system, and a recording medium and a data processing method to be executed and implemented in the telephone relay apparatus.
2. Related Art
At present, in a large company or the like, a specific terminal user such as an employee is lent an in-office specific telephone terminal which forms a part of a telephone relay system. In such a telephone relay system, a line connecting request from the outgoing telephone terminal of a telephone outgoing user outside the company is received by a telephone relay apparatus provided in the company, and is relayed to the specific telephone terminal of a specific terminal user.
To boost the convenience of telephone call relays, a telephone relay system has been suggested to constantly detect the location of an employee in a company with an ID card, and relay a line connecting request from an outgoing telephone terminal to the fixed-line telephone terminal located at the location detected with the ID card (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 04-246957, for example).
There also has been a telephone relay system that selects an in-house fixed-line extension telephone terminal based on the calling telephone number of an outgoing telephone terminal issuing a line connecting request, and relays the line connecting request to the fixed-line extension telephone (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 09-224089, for example).
However, the above telephone relay systems cannot cope with a situation where a line connecting request from an outgoing telephone terminal is not relayed to the specific telephone terminal of a specific terminal user. To handle such situations, a telephone message recording services and a telephone call transfer services are available today.
Still, urgent line connecting requests cannot be relayed to specific terminal users by a telephone message recording service. Also, line connecting requests are transferred only to a predetermined telephone terminal by a telephone call transfer service. If the telephone terminal is not located in the vicinity of a specific terminal user, an urgent line connecting request cannot be relayed to the specific terminal user either.